Honorable

I walk on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at a local cemetery. It's the city cemetery for Kershaw, SC which doesn't so much qualify as a city, I wouldn't guess. I suppose it depends on who you talk to.

We just call it Town.

But I didn't start writing this to talk about that.

I walk.

I do it for the exercise.

I do it on those days because it's the only time when I don't have to corral a child. My son is in preschool and my daughter is off at her elementary school during that time. It's a three hour period of relative peace and quiet, if I wish it to be so.

I usually put in my ear buds and listen to This American Life or catch up on Darkness Radio. I usually end up missing most of the episodes because as I walk, I start to think on things.

When I am focused on that path around the roads of that cemetery my mind can do what it wants.

My feet know the way.

I rarely have company that stays long, the average graveside visit is less than two minutes in duration by my research, and that's solid science. Except for one old fella and I think he comes every day. I don't know who he is, I have never gone to see what grave he is visiting. But it's always the same one.

I like to think that he is visiting the grave of his life long love. Someone that he will never get over, and that he is showing that respect of being at her side every day, that he has taken that commitment beyond death and he's just letting her know that he still has her on his mind.

But I know if it were me it would be a broken heart that brought me back every day. And I think that this is probably his reason as well.

But, again, I didn't start writing this to talk about that.
__________

The guys that prepare your final resting place, if you choose to be buried, grabbed my interest the other day.

As I arrived and parked my car off to the side by the fence I was a little miffed. They were occupying my spot where I usually start walking. I'm a creature of habit and this got in my craw a bit. Now, I realize that they were about much more important work as I watched them. And that sometimes I am a petty man.

They went to a building in the woods outside the fence and I heard the backhoe roar to life. I don't know that they keep it there. We have deaths in this town, of course, but I wouldn't think that they have one special backhoe just for this duty. It would be kind of proper if they did.

A few minutes later and they came out and around the roads through the cemetery and coming to the spot they were to excavate, they started in on the work at hand. I could hear the grind of the gears and the hydraulics working in and out. I heard the tamper tamping down the loose dirt around the grave. I heard the grunt of the guy working the grave with the shovel by hand and the chik, chik, chiiick, of his strokes with the shovel. I heard the tools and boards for the forming being placed back in the truck at the end of the work. I couldn't place my finger on what I was missing until I got back to the car after my walk and they were leaving.

One of the guys and his partner in one of the trucks spoke in passing mentioning that it was "Too hot to walk or dig now!" I mentioned that was why I was finishing up. We nodded and that was the end of the exchange.

But what was I missing?

The whole time these fellas worked at this I hadn't heard them speak one word. Not a syllable. The entire thing went down in silence. This was a group of four men. Good sized, roughneck looking guys. I would have expected conversation. I would have expected some off color language.

I didn't expect silence.

I know these guys probably don't make a lot of money doing what they do. I would think that most of you, us, think of it as just digging a hole. But I think these gentlemen have it right in their head.

I've been present at places where respect for the situation are called for. The Tomb of the Unknowns being one of them. If you've never been, it's a place that is shrouded in a hush. The only sounds the click of heels, the woosh of fabric and the maneuvering of a rifle as the guard walks his post.

These four men in the cemetery Wednesday gave the same respectful thought to the final resting place of someone I don't know. This gives me a reason to feel pride in other people on this planet. Just ordinary guys doing a job that needs to be done, but with dignity and respect. I think that the position these men fill is a very honorable one to have.

And that is a special thing indeed.